Montreal-based Meridian4 might not have the big bucks of a major publisher, but they sure have a definite formula cooking away as to what types of games they like to publish. First, we got the fun top-down sci-fi dungeon crawl, Space Hack, then the creepy top-down adventure game, Daemonica. Their latest title is a solid blast of top-down cold fear from Finnish developer Frozenbyte called Shadowgrounds, an excellent revisiting of stock sci-fi/horror conventions and tense, action-packed alien-blasting gameplay. Shadowgrounds doesn't go out of its way to dump anything resembling an overly complex plot on your head, but that actually works highly in its favor.

The mostly straightforward bug blasting makes for a great mix of casual pick up and playability with a dash of hardcore challenge throughout. If you want a game where you get to blast, beat and roast a few tons of interstellar insects and other well (or multi)-armed creatures, then this one has your name carved all over it. You get a lengthy single player campaign with same screen co-op action and an excellent map editor that adds quite a bit of replay value.

With influences from the Alien movies, the Doom games and a few different coin-op run 'n gun classics, the best way to enjoy what's here is to not expect too much in the way of an original plot - just take your mission medicine and go kill off the assorted bugs of various sizes until your trigger happy ways are sated. You're Wesley Tyler, a skilled mechanic stationed on Jupiter's moon Ganymede and you have one hell of a bug problem. Sent off to fix what's basically a blown fuse, you end up coming across a bit more than you can chew, as your workplace is overrun and you go from electrician to exterminator, without so much as a chat with your union rep.

You're certainly earning that overtime pay though, as the beasties get bigger and badder, upping your chances of meeting a toothy, painful death geometrically as you progress. While the standard issue story won't have you pumping your fist and cheering, expect the unexpected in the gameplay department, thanks to the solid control scheme, excellent weapon selection and amazing use of some brilliant lighting effects. This is an incredibly dark game, and I don't mean in tone alone. If you're easily freaked out by stuff skittering in the dark, all those goose bumps you get after a few stages will have you sprouting feathers and squawking every time something jumps out at you from the blackness.

Fortunately, your ever-increasing arsenal does include a flashlight and yes, you can use it and fire your weapons simultaneously. The straightforward run forward and kill stuff sections are combined with plenty of careful sneaking and shining sequences, where using that battery-powered torch to light up areas before venturing forth is the smartest move. Smaller creatures flee from the light, allowing you to ventilate them as you creep forward, hoping that the door ahead leads to safety. Sometimes you're too busy trying to survive to check every corner - and that's when something usually comes up and blindsides you. You want tension, ladies and gents? Try making your way through levels where narrow areas lead into wide halls or rooms, with bugs using the corners and pillars to lurk behind, waiting for the fool with bad judgment and a death wish.

You die a lot if you're careless (even more so on Hard) and not so much if you're cautious, but after a few levels your underarms will feel like the tropics and you'll be clenching that mouse or controller ever so tightly. Like plenty of FPS games there's plenty of doors to unlock and technicians to rescue that drives the plot forward. As long as you're not taking this all too seriously, it works beautifully. The control scheme is easily adjustable and uses a ton of keyboard buttons, but remapping things to a controller is simple to do and might be better for those more used to a game pad.

The monster AI is pretty sweet, allowing for plenty of random scares when you're surprised from different angles. It's bad enough to be dealing with spiders of various sizes and fast-moving creatures that look a mite familiar, but then you come across weapon-toting baddies and overfed bosses that cause you to slap the pause button and yell out "No *bleep*ing way!"" as you figure out a way to get the hell out of Dodge. Speaking of dodging, there's a rolling move that helps you to avoid trouble, but the environments are packed with hazards that can whittle your life away in moments.

Weapons can be upgraded thanks to mod parts dropped by dead aliens (what, you were expecting a shop?) and you can have a fine old time whipping up bigger and better weapons of mass destruction. If this were a first person shooter it would feel a bit too pedestrian at times, but the top-down 3D engine allows for a massive amount of enemies onscreen, some nicely destructible environments, and multiplayer action without the need to go online. That latter point might be a sore spot fir those who think every game should have some sort of online play, but if you've got a nicely sized monitor and an extra PC game pad, you'll reconsider. You may be surprised at how you won't miss players dropping games, ear-burning insults via voice chat or text, or any of the other side effects that come from online play.

Visually, Frozenbyte has done a fantastic job, creating a proprietary engine that's solid and speedy, not just there to push a ton of polygons and overused special effects at you in order to sell a new 3D card. Indoor and outdoor environments are full of little details and things that explode or shatter really nicely. The graphics settings are adjustable to support a wide range of video cards, but if you have a machine that can play this with everything dialed way up with no frame rate loss then you'll be doing that fist-pumping thing mentioned above. Darkness is used to such powerful effect that some areas have you leaping from your chair when you see a monster's shadow coming towards you, which is fine when you're by yourself and kind of embarrassing when you're playing with a friend sitting next to you. Just say you have the hiccups or a charley horse or something and get back to the bug disposal.

The sound production is fine, with the assorted weapon and environmental effects as well as the grinding soundtrack setting the perfect mood for the action. The voice acting is okay, but if you're going to approach this like it's a serious game then you might not like some of the emoting that emanates from your PC speakers. Just think of it as a cool, sometimes campy coin-op and those overly critical feelings will melt away like fresh butter in a heated pan. By the way, you can also pop in a couple of USB controllers and play in co-op with up to four players - this is trickier than it sounds unless you've got a big monitor and a couple of chairs handy and while it's definitely fun, this sort of thing goes over better in a console game where you're playing on a nice comfy couch. Three more folks huddled over the same monitor makes for a bit of elbow madness…

There's a great level editor included and, with a little practice, you can come up with some superb looking maps. It takes about half an hour or so of playing around with object manipulation and menus before you can lay down some decent levels, but if modding's your thing then the hours will melt away. With the easy to use editor and fast-paced action, it sure would be great to see this one show up on a next-gen system at some point. Nevertheless, as always, the deciding factors are money and finding a console publisher willing to take a chance. Given the two main features, all three next-generation consoles are touting (online play and downloadable content); I'm hoping that Shadowgrounds gets a long, hard look at by people who know a good thing when they see it. Of course, it isn't perfect if you're not a fan of endlessly racking up kills, finding items, rinsing and repeating, but it's hard to look down on such an impressive effort.

In a way, Shadowgrounds is a louder, meaner, faster futuristic version of Gauntlet, so if that floats your boat then your trigger finger should be itching and your wallet has already grabbed you by the back pocket and is leading you to either your favorite game shop or Valve's Steam download service. Come to think of it, if Frozenbyte had the rights to the Alien license and made this with a few changes to fit the franchise, it'd be even more of a killer game. It would also go a long way in removing some of the nails Fox has hammered into that series' coffin with that awful AVP flick from a few years back. While Shadowgrounds might not win any big awards for originality, the nonstop action absolutely gets the adrenaline pumping throughout as it offers up a planet's worth of beasties to blow away.

Reviewed by Greg Wilcox for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).